Visitor Counter

Visitors Since Blog Created in March 2010

Click Below to:

Add Blog to Favorites

Coyotes-Wolves-Cougars.blogspot.com

Grizzly bears, black bears, wolves, coyotes, cougars/ mountain lions,bobcats, wolverines, lynx, foxes, fishers and martens are the suite of carnivores that originally inhabited North America after the Pleistocene extinctions.
This site invites research, commentary, point/counterpoint on that suite of native animals (predator and prey) that inhabited The Americas circa 1500-at the initial point of European exploration and subsequent colonization.
Landscape ecology, journal accounts of explorers and frontiersmen, genetic evaluations of museum animals, peer reviewed 20th and 21st century research on various aspects of our "Wild America" as well as subjective commentary from expert and layman alike. All of the above being revealed and discussed with the underlying goal of one day seeing our Continent rewilded.....Where big enough swaths of open space exist with connective corridors to other large forest, meadow, mountain, valley, prairie, desert and chaparral wildlands.....Thereby enabling all of our historic fauna, including man, to live in a sustainable and healthy environment. - Blogger Rick

Meet the Coywolf: Nature's Next Top Dog?

Even while pure grey wolf populations continue to recover in North America, the top dog has been, and may continue to be, the coywolf. A hybrid of coyote, wolf, and even wild dog, this species appears to be one of the most successful predators in the United States, despite the fact it is one of the least protected animals.

Wild grey wolves were all but wiped out by overhunting in the United States in the early 1920s, allowing coyote populations to explode in once-suppressed regions and spill over into new territory. Now coyotes can be found in nearly every territory wolves once roamed.

SHARE THIS STORY

RELATED ARTICLES

Coyotes are not the only top predators in these regions. There's a larger and more dangerous top-dog too. The coywolf, or Eastern coyote, is a larger coyote with wolf-like features that can be found in land north of the Great Lakes.

Past field studies have found that despite their dominant coyote features, coywolves behave like the apex predators that once inhabited the region - hunting in packs and having a complex social structure. The Western coyote, on the other hand, is primarily a loner except during mating and birthing seasons.

A Heck of a Mutt

Just last month, the renowned science journalist Moises Velasquez-Manoff wrote in New York Times Magazine that it is largely thought that the coywolf is roughly one-quarter wolf and two-thirds coyote, with the rest being dog - a "canis soup" of mixed genes that Bradley White, a scientist at Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario, believes is the direct result of desperate and packless grey wolves breeding into coyote populations in the wake of their decline.

"The result has been a creature with enough strength to hunt the abundant woodland deer," Velasquez-Manoff wrote, "as much as 40 percent larger than the Western coyote, with powerful wolflike jaws."

(Photo : Flickr: Eric Kilby/Justin Johnsen (modified)) The North American Grey Wolf (left) compared to the Western coyote (right)

However, what's interesting is that this has never truly been proven. In fact, coyotes and grey wolvesfamously don't get along, bullying one another out of regions despite the fact that they only share some, and not all, resources.

A study published in the Canadian Journal of Zoology back in 2000 revealed that there is a chance that grey wolves and timber wolves from different parts of North America are two separate species entirely. That then lead experts to the theory that the timber wolf is a wolf species that specifically evolved from a coyote-like ancestor, while grey wolves emigrated to North America over the Bering Strait. Such a theory could explain why timber wolves (sometimes called "eastern wolves") can hybridize into the Eastern coyote despite what appears to be a base hatred between grey wolves and North America's smaller canine.

Still, a paper published in Heredity, a Nature publication, back in 2010 revealed that Eastern wolf and coyote populations often boast genetic information specific to timber wolf fathers and coyote mothers. This raised a new set of questions: was the timber wolf actually once a hybridization between coyotes and grey wolves? Does that then mean the coywolf is a hybridized hybrid?

Manmade Coywolves?

Before things got any more complicated, a team of wildlife researchers set out to determine once-and-for-all if pure male grey wolves (Canis lupus) and female Western coyotes (Canis latrans) can indeed make what looks and even functions like a coywolf on their own.

The results were published in the journal PLOS Oneearlier this year, and were not exactly as clear as the experts would have liked. Out of nine artificial inseminations over two breeding seasons, only three coyote mothers became pregnant.

"One coyote ate her pups, another produced a resorbed fetus and a dead fetus by C-section, and the third produced seven hybrids, six of which survived," the authors reported.

What's interesting, however, is that while one out of three is pretty bad odds, the six survivors proved to be successful hunters - displaying a pack mentality even while boasting the adaptable scavenger guile of coyotes.

The authors add, "while our study adds information to the controversy, it does not settle it. Further study is needed to determine whether the putative Canis lycaon["coywolf"] is indeed a unique species."

Did You Say "Chupacabra?"

Besides being a potentially unique species, the coywolf could also be the unexpected inspiration of a legendary monster.

The Chupacabra, a mysterious beast that reportedly ravages livestock in the deep south and across Mexico, may be nothing more than a bunch of mangy hybrids.

That's according to relatively recent DNA analysis of the "Texas Blue Dog," a creature that had reportedly killed 28 chickens on a Cuero ranch owned by Phylis Canion.

According to theScience Channel'sThe Unexplained Files, Canion, a nutritionalist and wildlife enthusiast, discovered her chicken were all being slaughtered in the same brutal fashion over the course of a month - with throats torn and bodies drained of a great deal of blood.

"It opens the throat in the jugular," Canion had told the Huffington Post. "It seems to like the taste of blood, which is interesting because the only animal that is set up to suck blood is the bat."

(Photo : Flcirk: Calgary Reviews) A coyote or Mexican coywolf with mange. It is thought that most "Chupacabra" sightings are actually these unfortunate animals.

Because the kills were left where they fell, rather than being dragged away like most scavengers would, Canion believed that the predator responsible could be linked to legends of the chupacabra, which is notorious for draining the blood of its victims.

Canion and her neighbors later found the bodies of three hairless and dog-like beasts and had samples sent away for testing.

In 2007, initial DNA analysis from Texas State University came back positive for a Mexican coyote with severe mange - an illness that causes hair loss. Further analysis investigating strange skeletal proportions and a blue tinge to the beast's skin revealed that the creature may have been a Mexican wolf and coyote hybrid - an uncommon cousin to the northern coywolf.

However, even if a coywolf is one chupacabra, it might not be all. Dozens of sighting of the mysterious creature have been made over the years, and many still speculate that it is its own elusive species.

Two Massachusetts Eastern Coyotes at their den site

Eastern Wolf in Algonquin Provincial Park, Ontario, Canada

Aldo Leopold--3 quotes from his SAN COUNTY ALMANAC

"We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect."

Aldo Leopold

"A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise."

Aldo Leopold

''To keep every cog and wheel is the first precaution of intelligent tinkering."

Wildlife Rendezvous

Like so many conscientious hunters and anglers come to realize, good habitat with our full suite of predators and prey make for healthy and productive living............Teddy Roosevelt depicted at a "WILDLIFE RENDEZVOUS"

Recent Posts

Blog Disclaimer

This is a personal weblog. The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer. In addition, my thoughts and opinions change from time to time…I consider this a necessary consequence of having an open mind. This blog is intended to provide a semi-permanent point in time snapshot and manifestation of my various thoughts and opinions, and as such any thoughts and opinions expressed within out-of-date posts may not be the same, nor even similar, to those I may hold today. All data and information provided on this site is for informational purposes only. Rick Meril and WWW.COYOTES-WOLVES-COUGARS.COM make no representations as to accuracy, completeness, suitability, or validity of any information on this site and will not be liable for any errors, omissions, or delays in this information or any losses, injuries, or damages arising from its display or use. All information is provided on an as-is basis.